


Fall into Your Gravity

by CinnamonLily



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Natasha Romanov, Awkwardness, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Sam Wilson, Bisexuality, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, M/M, Modern day Bucky, Multi, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Obliviousness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Poly, Sam wants to belong, Sam/Steve/Bucky is the endgame here, Steve wants everyone to be happy, Threesome - M/M/M, Veteran Bucky, and Bucky just wants to be safe, okay somewhat compliant but not really, there will be smut, who is actually old!Bucky's great nephew
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 10:15:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6150310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonLily/pseuds/CinnamonLily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve Rogers met Sam Wilson, he gained a new best friend, after all his old one died when he fell from the train back in the day. In modern day, S.H.I.E.L.D and Hydra are gone and the Avengers are enjoying some peace and quiet for a change. It makes Steve's existence a little bit boring, but at least he has his best buddy Sam by his side, and things aren't so complicated.</p><p>Then one day they bump into a man who is the spitting image of Bucky. Turns out he's also called James Barnes, and Steve's friend Bucky was his great uncle. James needs a place to stay for a while, so Steve and Sam invite him to the house they're sharing in DC. That's when things start to get interesting....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hidingfromsomeone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidingfromsomeone/gifts).



> I've had this idea for a while, sort of. And then my friend Anna said she was muchly into Modern!Bucky and Canon!Steve, but that there wasn't enough of that around and... well... we both kind of like Sam, too. 
> 
> So while Anna is gone at a conference in the US and I'm stuck at home because I couldn't afford to go, I decided to start writing this thing. No idea where it will go or how exactly, but we'll see. I hope to update this whenever I have a chapter ready, but again, we'll see. This is an indulgence while I should really be working on my original fiction, because those pesky deadlines and all. 
> 
> I'll be adding tags as I see them necessary. I doubt there will be much triggery stuff, but if so, I'll let you know. Oh and this isn't betaed, so all mistakes are mine. Most of what might seem odd is just my writing style, though. Haha.
> 
> The title comes from I Miss You by Adele, which is part of my mental soundtrack for this story.

* * *

 

When it happened, it struck him like Thor’s hammer to his temple.

He was jogging with Sam, trying to enjoy the lightness they expected he’d be feeling now that S.H.I.E.L.D and Hydra were both gone and no alien attacks were in sight. They were on their morning run like they had been before the whole mess with the aforementioned organizations had started.

“Look at us, enjoying National Mall like two regular dudes on a regular Wednesday morning,” Sam panted at him when they stopped to drink from their water bottles.

Steve smiled at him wryly, affection flaring in his chest once again. Sam was a good man, a good soldier, and a good guy to have next to him in battle. It still freaked Steve out that he could’ve lost the first genuine friend he’d made after waking up. The moment when he’d seen the android pick Sam up from the sky and rip off his wing had almost made Steve lose his concentration. Almost.

Later, one of the other robots—Stark kept calling them Power Rangers which was apparently some sort of pop culture reference and had to do with the colors separating the androids from one another—managed to almost kill Steve on the helicarrier. The only thing that made him struggle to stay conscious after the fall into the Potomac was the fact that Sam wouldn’t have anyone to run with. Sam would be upset if Steve died like this.

So yes, it was a revelation to have a friend like that again. He’d had Bucky, once. But Bucky was long gone, and as much as it hurt, as much as he hated to admit that his friend was never coming back, Steve needed to move on. The problem with that was that for him, it hadn’t been that many years from the loss. For others, it had been decades. For Steve, the loss of his best friend was still like a barely scabbed over cut in his heart.

Steve was wiping his brow with the hem of his shirt, enjoying Sam’s quiet nagging about unfairness and strip tease in the park, when he heard it. Someone was cursing up a storm, sounding more Brooklyn than Steve ever had. For a brief moment Steve thought they were in Central Park, but then his mind snapped into place again.

He lowered the shirt and turned to look at the source of the noise, and promptly froze in place. A man was standing on the curb past the little stretch of grass, glaring daggers at a cab that had obviously kicked him out too soon.

When he guy turned and kicked his duffel bag Steve could see on the ground, he also tilted his face into the light.

“Steve?” Sam asked, his tone missing all the humor from before.

Steve could feel him following his gaze. At first Sam didn’t get it, but when he made the connection, he gasped.

The man picked up his bag and looked around, his gaze landing on Steve and Sam. Instead of an embarrassed smile or something else predictable, the man narrowed his eyes at them in an almost vicious manner.

“What?” he called, then strode closer with a weird purpose in his steps.

“Uh….” Steve felt ashamed of his measly contribution.

“Nothing at all, dude,” Sam said quickly, holding up his hands and edging his shoulder between Steve and the ticked off guy. “It’s just… you look a lot like someone Steve here used to know.”

The man stopped and glared at them both, then took a closer look at Steve.

“Oh, yeah. My great uncle James, right?” he asked in a rhetorical tone. “You’re Captain America.”

It seemed like the guy, Bucky’s nephew who looked just like him, noticed Steve’s small flinch at being called Captain but chose to ignore it.

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “I’m Sam Wilson,” he introduced himself and held out a hand.

“Well, like my uncle, I’m James Barnes, too. Family calls me Bucky because I look like him.”

He shook Sam’s hand and looked at Steve, raising a brow at him in an achingly familiar way.

Maybe noticing how flustered and oddly numb Steve felt, Sam took over the conversation.

“So where were you going?” Sam asked, gesturing at the long-gone taillights of the cab.

James frowned and shrugged. “I’m not sure, actually. I got to town sometime last night and managed to get a cab from the airport to here, and I guess I fell asleep immediately. When we got this side of the Potomac, I woke up and started to dig around for my wallet and it wasn’t there. Must’ve dropped it at the airport. Anyway, the cabbie asked what was wrong and when I told him he booted me, the bastard.” His tone got angrier and angrier, until he just deflated in front of their eyes.

Steve could see the exhaustion hit him, then.

“Where are you coming from?” he managed to find his voice.

“Detroit. Went there to check out how a friend was doing. Someone I served with,” James said. “He hit some rough times and I was the closest to go keep him company for a while.”

“You live in DC?” Sam piped up.

“Nah, I don’t—” James stopped and looked at anywhere but Steve and Sam. Then he seemed to make a decision, and just blurted it out. “I’m kind of in between everything at the moment.”

“Well, we have space. You can call the airport later today, see if anyone found your wallet. If not, you can figure out how to get a new ID and stuff from the comfort of our crappy ass house.” Sam beamed at James, who—despite himself—seemed charmed.

“Hey it’s a good house, solid. Nothing wrong with it!” Steve couldn’t help but to object.

“It is _now_ ,” Sam continued their old argument. “We fucking worked our asses off to renovate the thing.”

“Yeah, but isn’t it nice to see your own hard work every day?” Steve replied, like he always did.

“See, this is why I can’t have an argument with you, you make too much sense. But for the record,” Sam said, turning to look at James who seemed amused. “When we were fixing up the house, I wished for another alien invasion just to get away from Mr. Super Renovator here, it was that bad.” Sam widened his eyes theatrically and herded James toward the SUV Steve now shared with him.

“Guys, I don’t know if—” James tried, valiantly, but when Sam decided something, it was of no use to protest.

“We know, trust me. There’s an extra bedroom and you need a space to stay and figure shit out. We all know how that is. It ain’t easy coming back and even when you’ve been back for a while, it can still fuck you up after some time,” Sam kept talking and in less than thirty minutes, they parked in front of the red brick building Steve and Sam had been calling home for a little over a year now.

They ushered James inside and Sam went to show him his bedroom upstairs. When Sam came back to the kitchen, he had the weirdest expression on his face.

Steve, who had been making coffee, looked at him inquisitively.

“He thought we were a couple,” Sam said and suddenly avoided Steve’s gaze.

Steve almost dropped the mug he’d just taken from the cupboard.

“What?”

“He thought we were sleeping in the master bedroom. Together.”

Steve noticed Sam was blushing, and decided to forget about his own muddled emotions for now.

Instead, he asked, “What did he think about that?”

“I guess he was okay, he murmured something about being bi himself so it would’ve been fine or something like that,” Sam said and scratched the back of his neck, still avoiding looking at Steve.

“Sam?” Steve asked quietly, then patiently waited for his friend to look at him. When he did, there was something new in his eyes, something hesitant and a little bit off, but not in a bad way, Steve decided.

“Yeah?”

“What did _you_ think about it?” Steve couldn’t help but to gnaw on his lower lip as he waited for the answer.

See, even though he’d been majorly in love with the original Bucky Barnes back in the day, there hadn’t actually been anything but friendship between them. Okay, and maybe some drunken kisses and a couple of hasty hand jobs when the situation had called for them. But nothing else than that. Steve hadn’t been in love with Bucky in a very long time.

By the time he’d enlisted, Bucky had been all but engaged to a girl his family liked for him and Steve… well, Steve hadn’t quite figured himself out yet.

Now, after the wonders of the internet and modern day revelations and something scary called Tumblr, Steve knew there were all flavors of sexuality and romantic interests. Or lack thereof, really. There were all kinds of people now, and Steve wasn’t quite sure where he fit in, but he knew for a fact that he liked the way he didn’t have to label himself if he didn’t want to.

That brought him to his friendship with Sam. Steve wasn’t blind, he could appreciate the way Sam looked sleep mussed in the mornings, or after a shower when he’d come off work and Steve was cooking. He knew Sam looked at him, too. But they hadn’t put it all into words, because they didn’t want to rock the boat.

Yet the chance encounter of Bucky’s nephew had changed that.

“I… I think, if you wanted to, I could maybe take you out on a date?” Sam answered the question with one of his own.

Steve found himself smiling from ear to ear and nodded rapidly. “Yeah, whenever is fine by me. You’re the one with a regular job.”

“Okay,” Sam said, blushed some more, and took the milk out of the fridge for his coffee.

By the time they both had their mugs ready, James came downstairs, rubbing his long hair with a towel.

“So Steve, were you and my great uncle a couple or not? I mean it seems like nobody really knows and I’m curious. Grandma Becky always said not to meddle with the dead, but you’re alive, and well….” he asked, shrugging like it was no big deal to ask such a thing.

To be fair, maybe it wasn’t in this day and age, but Steve still took a moment to let his heartbeat calm back down.

“Inquisitive minds and all?” Sam grinned at James before taking his mug into the living room to make space in the kitchen that was definitely a bit crowded for three men their size.

“Want coffee?” Steve asked James, who smiled at him in an eerily familiar way.

“Yeah, sure. Black, please.” James hung the towel neatly on the back of a nearby chair, then pulled a rubber band from around his wrist and nimbly turned his hair into what Steve knew was called a “man bun.”

Steve made him the drink and handed it over. The mug had Stark’s logo on it.

Then it was time to face the question.

“No, we… fooled around a bit. Not even many times. It wasn’t… like that. Between us,” Steve finally said and they went after Sam to get comfortable.

“But he was bisexual like me?” James asked, blowing into his coffee as he settled down in an armchair.

Steve thought for a moment and then grinned. “I guess the word you’re looking for is opportunistic,” he said, making both Sam and James laugh.

“Okay, I suppose I can live with that.”

“I’m bi too,” Sam said, answering the question that had been lingering in Steve’s mind for a long time but he hadn’t been able to get out.

“Oh.” How James managed to convey interest and _interest_ in one syllable was beyond Steve.

Neither of them asked about Steve’s sexuality, but then Sam had the answer he needed for now and James seemed like he didn’t want to pry too much. Besides, since Steve had already confessed to fooling around with his great uncle, James had a partial answer, too.

The others started to talk about other, more normal get-to-know things. Steve zoned out as he watched James become animated over some TV show Steve hadn’t even heard of.

The more he looked, the more differences he saw in James compared to Bucky. Maybe the similarity he’d seen at first sight was more like James’s features warping the memory of Bucky in Steve’s head in that moment. Now that he could actually see James properly, he could tell his eyes were greenish blue where Bucky’s had been gray. Bucky’s nose had been a little wider, too, and his jaw not quite as sharp as James’s.

“Oh man, I really don’t know how I haven’t showed it to Steve yet,” Sam said with obvious mirth in his tone. “We’ve been going through some shows I like. Pop culture education and all that.”

“Shown me what?” Steve shook himself mentally, concentrating on their guest as more than a doppelganger of his first love.

“There’s this show called Queer as Folk we should all watch together,” James said and his grin was pure wicked Bucky. They had such similar mouths….

“How do I have a feeling that this won’t end well for me?” Steve asked, looking from James to Sam and back.

Both of them laughed at him, but Steve just rolled his eyes and went with it.

It seemed like they had a house guest for now, one that kept messing with Steve’s equilibrium. He also had a date sometime in the future with Sam. Suddenly, in the span of few hours, Steve’s formerly boring life seemed all but. He smiled into his mug, listening to the others chat some more, and wondered where they’d all end up.

He hoped the date thing wouldn’t mess up with his friendship with Sam, but he guessed it remained to be seen.

And James, with the echoes of Bucky in his gestures and appearance, and the way he’d checked out the living room’s potential exits just like Sam and Steve did in new places, would definitely make their lives more interesting.

“If it doesn’t mess with your head too much, you can call me Bucky,” James—Bucky—was saying, and he looked at Steve earnestly.

Yeah, definitely interesting.

 

 


	2. Bucky

* * *

 

 

Bucky blinked blearily at Sam who came in from his morning jog. That morning his big blond shadow wasn’t with him, which surprised Bucky.

“Where’s Steve?” he asked, pouring coffee for himself and lifting the pot at Sam to see if he wanted some, too.

“Some Cap business in New York, he should be back by tonight. Tony’s borrowing the jet,” Sam said and shook his head at the offer. “I’ll go shower first.”

“Mkay.” Bucky put the pot away and carried his mug to the chair he already thought of his, more or less.

He’d been in DC for a week, and had decided to stay for now. Sam was pretty awesome, and Bucky had tagged along with him to the VA where he’d helped some other vets to fill in some paperwork that required math. That, in addition to taking orders in the desert, seemed to be Bucky’s only talent in the post-military life.

Steve, on the other hand, was harder to interact with. By now Bucky knew that there was this guy called Steve who was nothing like Captain America. Cap seemed indestructible and the All-American Hero type. Steve… Steve was broken.

Sometimes Bucky wondered if Sam really saw how messed up his friend really was. Sam was an awesome therapist, sure, but sometimes the closest to you were the hardest to see clearly.

For whatever reason, Bucky’s PTSD seemed better in this house. Maybe it was the illusion of being under the protection of the almighty Cap, or something. He wasn’t sleeping well, but then neither were his housemates, and he hadn’t had any panic attacks while there. Certainly a change from before.

He sat there by the front window, looking out into the early morning. The neighborhood kids were walking to the bus stop and many looked at the house, waiting to see a glimpse of Cap or Falcon. Yeah, it felt a bit surreal that the guys he’d read all about while stuck in the sand pit were people he could call friends now.

A van with some logo with ladder and tools on the side stopped two houses down. Guys got out and soon enough they were putting up scaffolding against the front of the building. Probably doing some sort of maintenance to the brick façade, Bucky thought.

Idly, he listened to the shower turning off and then after a while, Sam coming down the stairs and pouring himself coffee in the kitchen. When the smiling man came to find him, Bucky couldn’t help but to grin back. There was certain kind of magic about Sam Wilson, and Bucky found himself yearning for more.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask but I don’t want to ask Steve directly,” he started a question that had been bothering him ever since the beginning.

Sam made a “go on” motion and hummed into his coffee.

“Why was I such a shock?  I mean didn’t he look up the people from his past? He should’ve known Grandma had my mom and I existed,” Bucky spoke thoughtfully. “I get the way I look like him must be a shock, and takes time to getting used to, but….” He couldn’t help but to frown.

“You got to understand one thing, Bucky,” Sam started in what Bucky called his “therapist voice,” and they both grinned at the realization. “Oh hush,” Sam said and rolled his eyes, then continued. “Steve woke up to a different kind of world. He never talks about the crash or the waking up, but it must’ve been horrible. And whether it is like being in a dreamless sleep for sixty odd years or something completely different, he woke up from it. Maybe it felt like time passed in the ice or maybe he woke up like it could’ve been the next day from the crash, you know….” Sam trailed off and sighed.

Bucky nodded solemnly. He hadn’t quite looked at it all that way.

“What you’re saying is that dude is gonna be hundred in a couple of years and all his friends are dead and he knows it, so why try to reconnect with any relatives, they don’t know him anyway?” he asked, despite knowing the answer already.

“How would you feel if tomorrow you’d wake up and literally everyone you knew was either gone or aged and you hadn’t? I don’t think… I mean he checked up on Peggy, visited a lot, but I think it hurt him when she couldn’t always remember him. She died last year, and I think Steve’s been even more…”

“Depressed?” Bucky asked, because Steve was ticking all the check boxes from his point of view.

Sam opened his mouth to object, but then closed it with a snap. His gaze sort of unfocused for a moment as he went through what Bucky thought must’ve been his own check list.

After a couple of minutes, Sam looked at him and frowned. “How did I miss it?”

Bucky could’ve placated him, but for a moment he was struck by how shaken Sam looked, and the moment passed before he could say anything.

“You made any plans for the date night yet?” he asked instead, hoping to see Sam’s smile again.

He was rewarded with that beam of inner light almost instantly, and like always it warmed Bucky up inside.

“Sort of, yeah. I was thinking about maybe driving to Rockville for one of those treetop adventures. You know zip lining and stuff,” Sam looked enthusiastic but slightly hesitant at the same time. “What do you think?”

Bucky pondered on it for a moment. Then, because it wasn’t his style to mince words, he shook his head.

“Who are you taking on a date, Cap or Steve?” He raised a brow at Sam.

Sam, who looked at him blankly for a second, then burst out laughing, almost spilling coffee on himself.

“Holy fuck, Bucky. What would I do without you, man?” he gasped when he finally managed to speak again.

Bucky snorted and took a sip from his mug. “Well, I’m here now.”

Soon after, Sam left for work and Bucky started to go through the living room bookshelf for something new to read. He managed to pick something he’d been meaning to read for a while now by John Green—hey, everyone said the guy was good, he just wouldn’t buy a book lightly—and settled back down in his chair.

About half an hour later he closed the book and shook his head. Then he got up and placed it back into the shelf.

“Definitely not one for me,” he murmured under his breath.

He was into clever stuff, but nothing _that_ clever. It had all seemed almost forced to him, and while he saw what the rave was about, it so wasn’t for him.

He wandered into the kitchen to check out if he needed to do a grocery run, now that he was really awake and all. He’d taken to doing that, because Sam’s shifts could stretch and Steve was often away doing whatever it was he did when he left the house without telling them.

Bucky suspected he went to volunteer somewhere, but wasn’t sure, and it seemed like Sam took the situation as Steve finding something to do. Apparently that hadn’t always been the case, and any progress that took Steve out of the house during the days was welcome.

So far there hadn’t been an Avengers sort of an emergency, but Sam had assured Bucky there would be one sooner or later. They were called in for a lesser jobs now, too. Even regular domestic terrorism was being handled as Avengers worthy now, if the situation got dire enough. Yeah, Bucky didn’t want their job, no sir.

Speaking of which… Bucky really needed a job.

He had savings left, after all he’d been in the Army for years and hadn’t really used any of the money he’d made. He just didn’t want to use it all on living, when he really needed a long term plan. The problem was, he didn’t want anything to do with the United States Army at this point, and he didn’t want to handle guns. It had to be something else.

He made a shopping list for stuff he could manage to carry back in one of Steve’s “save the environment” type of bags, and grabbed one with him before he left the house.

They lived ten minute walk away from the closest grocery store by road. The street circled a patch of forest nobody had yet to destroy by building on, and Sam had shown Bucky a path across the trees that cut the distance to less than five minutes by foot.

Bucky didn’t hesitate to take the shortcut, and he was trying to find Steve’s favorite yogurt in no time. Bucky insisted on buying his own share of groceries, something Steve had tried to deny him at first. After all Steve had all the money he could ever need. That argument had lasted up until Sam had given Steve a look and explained him that some things hadn’t changed much in seventy years; men still liked to pay their own way.

Once Bucky had picked everything on his list and some Ben & Jerry’s, he paid for the stuff, and packed it all into Steve’s bag, smiling at the print on the side. This one was a gift from Black Widow, apparently. The bold black lettering stated “Groceries” and underneath in cursive and a lighter color it said “and shit.” Yeah, Bucky had a feeling he’d like the Widow if he ever got to meet her.

As he walked back through the forest, he thought of what he knew of the other Avengers. Sam called Iron Man “Tony Snark” which pretty much told Bucky everything he needed to know about the guy. Steve had amended Sam’s comments by saying Tony was a genious, had lived in privilege, and couldn’t care less what people thought of him. Again, Bucky could understand why Tony Stark seemed to be an acquired taste.

It seemed like Black Widow—Bucky had problems calling her Natasha for some reason—was secretive, lethal, and had a sense of humor Bucky could appreciate. Sam said he liked Nat a lot, and Steve seemed to agree, at least Bucky hadn’t detected any negative undertones whenever she was mentioned.

Hawkeye—Clint—was apparently a bro. That’s what Sam called him anyway. Steve said Clint was the only person he’d ever known who could’ve challenged Bucky’s great uncle’s skills as a sniper. That was interesting, after all the family legends Bucky had heard growing up.

Doctor Banner seemed like a great guy, too. Sam said they had a lot of downtime discussions about psychology and different medications and side effects, and how drug companies fucked with people’s medications on purpose to get them to take more and how all doctors were bought by certain companies and had to push their medicines even when they weren’t actually the best options and so on. Yeah, it was a subject both Sam and Banner were passionate about. When Bucky asked about the Hulk, both Sam and Steve went a bit wide eyed and all Steve said was that the green giant had his purpose on the team, as had Banner. Bucky could live with that.

He walked up the sidewalk toward Steve and Sam’s house, trying to think about what they’d said about Thor, when it all went to shit.

Someone called “Look out!” and his body did the obvious, dropped the bag and took cover next to the house. He didn’t even make it to the corner of the wall and the front steps before the crashing sound made something inside him snap.

In a split second, he was hiding behind a rock formation, explosions going on around him. He didn’t know if it was IEDs or missiles, but something was trying to take him down and—

“Bucky? Bucky, it’s Steve, you’re in DC, it’s 2015, you’re all right. You were coming back from grocery store when the scaffolding they were putting up across the road fell down. It’s okay, you’re in DC, the year is 2015, Bucky, it’s okay….”

At first, the words meant nothing. It wasn’t until he heard someone interrupt the litany with “Is he okay? We’re so sorry, someone didn’t tighten something enough and it all came down….” and then the more familiar voice said, “I have it under control, it’s PTSD. He’s a vet. Are you guys all okay?”

Bucky blinked his eyes open, and while his brain was taking in the sights, all sound disappeared from around him. He could see the brick wall he was smushed against, and the pale concrete of the steps shielding him from the other side.

There was a guy with overalls and tool belt talking to Steve who crouched in front of Bucky, a few feet away, well outside his panicked bubble. He could see them talking, mouths moving, but no sound existed at that moment.

Steve had turned his head and wasn’t looking at Bucky. He needed to get inside, though, so he reached out a hand, telling his head that Steve would help him there.

The stranger quit talking when he noticed Bucky moving, and nodded toward him. Steve turned and smiled at him, a relieved kind of smile, not the forced Cap smile that was familiar from the TV.

“Inside,” Bucky managed to say, and Steve nodded.

He got up and took Bucky’s hand, pulling him to his wobbly feet.

“Hey, your stuff,” the guy reminded, and held out the tote bag toward Steve.

“Thanks for getting them,” Steve said, and supported Bucky up the steep stairs.

It wasn’t until he heard the door close and lock behind them that Bucky realized his hearing had come back. Steve abandoned the bag in the kitchen doorway and pulled Bucky to the living room. He was sat down on the couch and Steve grabbed a blanket, draping it over Bucky’s shoulders and tucked it so that he was cocooned.

“There, I’ll bring you a bottle of water and put the food away, just sit tight,” Steve said.

Bucky meant to nod, but all he could really do was tremble and consider pulling up his feet. But his boots were still on, and he couldn’t mess with Sam’s beloved couch like that.

He was frowning at his feet when Steve came back with the water.

“Shoes?” Steve guessed, and Bucky made an affirmative sound.

Steve pulled the scuffed combat boots off his feet and put them neatly by the end of the couch. Then he got up, went to the armchair to pull another afghan off the back. He came to Bucky and spread the wrap around his legs and feet, tucking his toes in like Bucky was a little kid.

When he went to get up, probably to put away the groceries, Bucky made an involuntary noise. It was a sort of mewl, an embarrassing little sound that made him look away.

“I put the ice cream away and anything else will keep for a while,” Steve said matter of factly and sat down next to Bucky.

The way his whole being relaxed, how his body seemed to just collapse further towards Steve, embarrassed him further. With his mind swimming in the remnants of the panic attack, he barely realized he was crying.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe now,” Steve started to talk again. “Is it okay if I come closer?” Ever the gentleman. Steve Rogers was all about consent, it seemed. Good for him. There certainly wasn’t enough of that going around.

Bucky nodded and let out the small whine of relief when Steve pulled him against himself, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s body, blankets and all.

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck, I promise,” Steve murmured into his hair and for once, Bucky didn’t question the comfort, he just took it and hung onto it, hoping that there would be a way to come out of this with grace, somehow.

It turns out neither of them really wanted to move anytime soon. Or maybe Steve was just that into chivalry and cuddling. It must’ve been at least an hour later when Bucky started awake, having fallen asleep with Steve’s sturdy shoulder as his pillow.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Steve murmured, and when Bucky looked up at him, the gentle, caring expression on Steve’s face made his heart constrict.

He could’ve taken discomfort, or even a sneer and walked away. But this, the way Steve’s ever so blue eyes shone with compassion and no judgment whatsoever, pushed Bucky down the ledge and into a freefall.

At the bottom of the fall would either be complete destruction and misery or more terrifyingly, love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for those who have commented, I really appreciate it and it makes me write more even when I'm so not supposed to....  
> No, this isn't what the updating schedule will be like, but Bucky had things to say and who am I to deny him. ;)


End file.
